The 12 days of GCHQ quizmas: test your brain power with these daily puzzles

Startup of the Week: Rentify

Rentify provides landlords with tools to manage their properties themselves so that they can bypass traditional letting agents. It was founded by George Spencer who previously worked in brand marketing and was a "terrible" PHP developer. Wired.co.uk caught up with him.

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We are a technology-enabled letting agent, in the same way as Amazon is a technology-enabled bookstore.

How do you plan to make money?

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We offer a variety of premium services to our self-managed landlords and have a subscription product for full property management.

If you have capital to deploy, it should be deployed only in the pursuit of growth or revenue

There seem to be a lot of startups in this space, what makes yours different?

Most startups in this space are estate agents with flashy websites. We're technology guys from companies like Hailo, Betfair, and Audioboo who are interested in driving innovation rather than preserving the old ways of doing things. Secondly, we're head-to-head with brick and mortar estate agents. We provide viewings and other services requiring human input. Finally, we're data-driven. We collect a huge amount of data about the property market and our customers, and we use it to inform our product decisions and qualify sales opportunities.

Where did you get the idea for the business?

Walking through my parents' sleepy seaside town, I saw the businesses that had gone: high street commercial models that could not compete against the greater consumer opportunities offered by their online equivalents. The music chain store had been rendered obsolete by iTunes, the book shop had been superseded by Amazon, the travel agent by Expedia. The estate agent was the last middle man standing.

What's the biggest misconception about your business?

That we're a niche. We transacted with 100,000 landlords last year: more than most agents put together.

What pushed you to stop talking about launching a startup to actually doing it?

I spent too long whinging about letting agents to a girlfriend who told me to either shut up or do something about it.

Can you express in some tangible terms how the business has developed?

Two years ago we were four guys in a broom cupboard at GoCardless who had 10,000 transacting customers. Today we're 30 people with 100,000. In the first two months of 2014 we made as much money as we did in the whole of 2013.

What has been the most challenging time for the company?

The default operational status for most startups is one level above panic, so every week has its challenges. At one point in early 2012 we were two months away from running out of money and a major new product release had bombed. That was a particularly stressful period.

How did you overcome that?

Staying calm and focusing on the things which allow us to raise capital. If you have capital to deploy, it should be deployed only in the pursuit of growth or revenue. If you're growing and/or making money you can raise more capital.

Do you have any advice for dealing with potential investors?

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Everything other than money in your account is a no.

What is the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you?

Tom Blomfield from GoCardless once said that the number one thing we compete against isn't our competitors, it's people not giving a shit. Very true.

Do you think your business is a contender for Startup of the Week? Email Olivia Solon on pitches@wired.co.uk